Shooting Wide Open

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In a more ominous use of animals, apparently the CIA tried a project called “Acoustic Kitty” (CIA PDF) in the ’60s. I kid you not:

One of the CIA’s most bizarre Cold War efforts was Operation Acoustic Kitty. In declassified documents from the CIA’s super-secret Science and Technology Directorate, it was revealed that some Cold-War-era cats were surgically altered to become sophisticated bugging devices. The idea was that the cats would eavesdrop on Soviet conversations from park benches, windowsills and garbage containers. They slit the cat open, put batteries in him, wired him up. The tail was used as an antenna. They tested him and tested him. They found he would walk off the job when he got hungry, so they put another wire in to override that

The CIA drove the cat to a Soviet compound on Wisconsin Avenue in Washington, D.C., and let him out of a parked van across the street. The cat ambled into the road, and was struck by a taxi almost immediately. Five years of effort and over $15 million in spending were reduced to roadkill in an instant..

Like the Russian Tank dogs?

A dog was supposed to carry a bomb, strapped to its body, and reach a specific static target. Then the dog would release the bomb by pulling with its teeth a self-releasing belt and return to the operator. The bomb would then be detonated either by a timer or remote control. A group of dogs practiced for half a year, but even the smartest ones could not master the task.

The first group of anti-tank dogs arrived at the frontline at the end of the summer of 1941 and included 30 dogs, 40 trainers, 6 cooks, 6 drivers and 10 miners. Their deployment revealed serious problems — to save fuel and ammunition, dogs had been trained on tanks which stood still and did not fire their guns. In the field, dogs refused to dive under moving tanks. Some persistent dogs ran near the tanks, waiting for them to stop, but got shot in the process. Gunfire from the tanks scared away many of the dogs. They would run back to the trenches, often detonating the charge upon jumping in, injuring Soviet soldiers. To prevent that, the returning dogs had to be shot, often by the people who had sent them. This made the trainers unwilling to work with new dogs.

Out of the first group of 30 dogs, only four managed to detonate their bombs near the German tanks, inflicting an unknown amount of damage. Six exploded upon returning to the Soviet trenches, killing and injuring soldiers. Three dogs were shot by the Germans and taken away, despite furious attempts of the Soviets to prevent it. This gave away all details of the detonation mechanism to the Germans.

Another serious training mistake was revealed later – Soviets used their own diesel-engine tanks to train the dogs rather than German tanks, which had gasoline engines. As the dogs relied on their acute sense of smell, the dogs sought out familiar Soviet tanks instead of strange-smelling German tanks.

It sounds too dumb strange to be true, but you can never overunderestimate the military, can you?

I watched a couple of historical dramas, both involving politics to some extent. First was Andrzej Wajda’s Katyn, about the methodical execution of about 12,000 Polish officers and intelligentsia during WWII by the Soviets in the forest of the same name. When the Germans came in, they uncovered a mass grave and used the event in their anti-Soviet propaganda. Then, when the Soviets emerged victorious at the end of the war, they recut the propaganda newsreels with a different narration and blamed it on the Germans. It wasn’t til 1990 that they actually officially owned up.

There is, I swear, not a light moment in the film (they got Penderecki, for christ’s sake), so if heavy, heavy shit is not for you, do not go near this film. It’s too heavy even for me, and that is pretty damn heavy. That’s not to say it wasn’t a good film in its way – you can see the entire thing on Youtube if you wish. I must warn you though, that Parts 12 and 13 are just about the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen on film. There are more graphic moments caught on film but after the relatively slow pace of the first 2/3rds of the movie, which plods a little, it’s a kick in the gut. And there’s something about the way he shoots it that makes you think about what it’d be like to be in those men’s shoes, on either side, and at draws you into the situation far more than any sane person wants to be drawn into that sort of thing. The only thing left to do is pray, and, considering what you’re seeing on the screen, that very pointedly makes you wonder if there is a God.

For me, the only film that had a similar viceral effect was Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible, though you could argue that half of that was an effect of the queasy shooting style, quick edits and heavy use of bass. I vowed to watch that one again, though I never did, but this one, good film or not, I couldn’t wait to get out of my computer. No way I’m watching this one again. I literally get the feeling of something festering inside me. In most massacre/war/sad films there is a thread of sacrifice or redeeming lessons learned or something along those lines. None here. One character says, “There will never be a free Poland.” It makes you realize how different, how fatalistic attitudes about life in other countries that have experienced serious wartime trauma can be.

Hope you weren’t about to sit down to eat…

Far lighter (well, at least relatively speaking) is Il Divo, which is about Italian Premier and cabinet minister Giulio Andreotti, who had purported ties to the Mafia, which would explain why his opponents would conveniently die. Paolo Sorrentino is, it turns out, the child of Tarantino, Ritchie and Coppola, so there is a lot of black humor and quirky visuals. I tried and failed to find a clip of the scene where Andreotti stares down a cat, so you’ll have to settle for the opening titles. I know, the cat scene sounds utterly ridiculous, but you have to see it to appreciate its asburd silliness.

(You can get captions on the first clip by clicking on the arrow in the bottom right of the clip window and selecting from the CC menu, but the second one doesn’t have them. Suffice it to say that he is giving a narration on all the people who’ve predicted his death and ended up preceding him to the grave. Subtitles are rather unnecessary for the rest of it.)

I have to admit that I take some perverse satisfaction in injecting some real morbidness into Halloween Day, which seems to me to be much more bubblegum than it should be. I’d like to see a bit more eerieness! However, Katyn might be going a bit far… Though it is true that the dead are constantly among us in the form of all these inherited grudges and hates and cultural sensitivities, isn’t it?